Soft field tomography system and method

1. An iterative method for computing a distribution of one or more properties within an object, the method comprising: defining a first mesh of the object, the first mesh including a plurality of nodes and elements; applying an excitation to the object; computing a response of the object to the applied excitation; obtaining a reference response of the object corresponding to the applied excitation; computing a distribution of one or more properties of the object using the computed response, the reference response, and the first mesh; and updating at least a subset of the nodes of the first mesh to form an updated mesh of the object by moving each node of the subset of the first mesh towards the region of interest using a movement scaling parameter as defined by, Δ ⁢ ⁢ d = k d 2 ⨯ r 2 , wherein Δd is a movement distance for each node, d is a distance between the region of interest and a current location for each node, k is a coefficient, and r is the shortest distance of the node to any of the plurality of sensing elements, and wherein a connectivity relationship between each of the subset of the nodes in the updated mesh remains the same as in the first mesh.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein computing the response of the object to the applied excitation comprises using the first mesh or a second mesh and the applied excitation.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein computing the response of the object to the applied excitation comprises using the applied excitation and an analytic model.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the excitation includes one or more of electrical signals, optical signals, thermal sources, mechanical excitations, acoustic signals, and magnetic field, and wherein the reference response includes one or more electrical signals, optical signals, thermal responses, mechanical responses, acoustic responses, and magnetic field responses corresponding in type to the excitation.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein applying the excitation to the object comprises applying the excitation via a plurality of sensing elements coupled to the object, and wherein computing the response of the object comprises computing the response for each of the plurality of sensing elements.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the reference response of the object to the applied excitation comprises measuring a response on a plurality of sensing elements configured to couple to the object.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining the reference response comprises obtaining a reference signal by simulation or analytic derivation from a reference database.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein defining the first mesh of the object comprises defining a two-dimensional mesh including a plurality of two dimensional elements or defining a three-dimensional mesh including a plurality of three-dimensional elements.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the movement distance of each node is inversely proportional to the power of the distance from each node to a determined point of the region of interest or to an edge of the region of the interest.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein moving each of the nodes in the subset is restricted according to a determined constraint.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: applying an updated excitation on the object; computing an updated response of the object to the updated excitation; and computing an updated distribution of the one or more properties of the object using the updated computed response.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein applying the updated excitation to the object comprises applying the same excitation or applying a different excitation to the object as compared to the excitation applied to the object before the first mesh is updated.

13. A soft field tomography system comprising: a plurality of sensing elements configured to couple to an object; an excitation driver coupled to the plurality of sensing elements for transmitting an excitation to the plurality of sensing elements; and a computing device coupled to the excitation driver, the computing device being configured to: define a first mesh of the object, the first mesh including a plurality of nodes and elements; compute a response of the object according to the applied excitation; obtain a reference response to the applied excitation; compute a distribution of one or more properties of the object using the computed response, the reference response, and the first mesh; identify a region of interest according to the computed distribution of the one or more properties of the object; and update at least a subset of the nodes in the first mesh to generate an updated mesh of the object by moving each node of the subset of the first mesh towards the region of interest using a movement scaling parameter as defined by, Δ ⁢ ⁢ d = k d 2 ⨯ r 2 , wherein Δd is a movement distance for each node, d is a distance between the region of interest and a current location for each node, k is a coefficient, and r is the shortest distance of the node to any of the plurality of sensing elements, and wherein a connectivity relationship between each of the subset of the nodes in the updated mesh remains the same as in the first mesh.

14. The system of claim 13 , further comprising a response detector coupled to the plurality of sensing elements for measurement of the reference response in response to the excitation and for transmitting the reference response to the computing device.

15. The system of claim 13 , wherein the computing device is configured to calculate a movement distance of each node in the subset, and wherein the movement distance is inversely proportional to a power of a distance between each node and the region of interest.

16. The system of claim 13 , wherein the computing device is configured to compute an updated distribution of one or more properties of the object on the updated mesh and to generate an image according to the updated distribution of one or more properties of the object, and wherein the system further comprises a screen to display the image.

17. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions which when executed by a processor or computer perform an iterative method of: defining a first mesh of an object, the first mesh including a plurality of nodes and elements; applying an excitation to the object; computing a response of the object to the applied excitation; obtaining a reference response of the object corresponding to the applied excitation; computing a distribution of one or more properties of the object using the computed response, the reference response, and the first mesh; and updating at least a subset of the nodes in the first mesh to form an updated mesh of the object by moving each node of the subset of the first mesh towards the region of interest using a movement scaling parameter as defined by, Δ ⁢ ⁢ d = k d 2 ⨯ r 2 , wherein Δd is a movement distance for each node, d is a distance between the region of interest and a current location for each node, k is a coefficient, and r is the shortest distance of the node to any of the plurality of sensing elements, and wherein a connectivity relationship between each of the subset of the nodes in the updated mesh remains the same as in the first mesh.